The Thing (1982 & 2011) - The Thing is...

 

★★★☆☆

‘Alien’ was born in 1979! 3 years later there came ‘The Thing’ (Left)! And almost 30 years later there came ‘The Thing’ (Right) again. But don’t get it wrong. 2011’s ‘The Thing’ is not a sequel to 1982’s, but a prequel instead. Sounds strange but that’s how it is, and there’s been no sequel ever since. Both ‘The Thing’ and ‘Alien’ are like the same stuff tailor-made to deliver alien terror that’s supposed to not only make you feel sick and scared, but masterfully keep you on tenterhooks from start to finish. 1979’s ‘Alien’ is one of a kind because it’s able to do both. 1982’s ‘The Thing’ is competent at terrifying and sickening you but it’s not the kind to stay in your mind for long. Its prequel, despite solider special effects, is more or less of a letdown because it apparently lacks patience and originality.

When I first saw ‘The Thing (1982)’, it did make me want to throw up watching those human bodies get invaded, torn up, deformed, and transformed to something so gross and frightening, thanks to the special effects they created for the film that were kind of start of the art at the time I guess. 1982’s ‘The Thing’ does have the slow-burn pace and scary mood like that in ‘Alien’, but when it comes to revealing the thing, it seems way too showy and exaggerated that makes it look like a B-film somehow selling cheap gross stuff only, while ‘Alien’ manages to keep it cool and mysterious throughout. Whether you appreciate ‘The Thing’ or not, I don’t have a problem with it though, you should’ve learned the difference between a classic and a copycat. And the prequel to ‘The Thing’ is like a copycat’s copycat which is not as good for sure but no trash to be fair, since it’s still able to make you go yuck in a horrible sense.

‘The Thing’ looks like a sci-fi made-up horror about some alien life form hibernating underneath some glacier in the Antarctic that starts to duplicate itself, spread and eat up humans after being woken up, but it can simply be considered a war between ignorant humans and a deadly vicious virus, just like the one we’re facing nowadays. Revisiting ‘The Thing’ reminds me about two things. First, we’re never in control of anything! It’s us who are being controlled on the contrary, by our own karma directed by our memories, perceptions and experiences! Second, we never really know anything! We see things just the way we are, not the way they are. The thing is, we’re enslaved to keep powering up the karma machine and being chained up to the Samsara (cycle of sufferings) by mistaking that we know what it is and are in control of it!